"Baby Gate" Olympics (and other sundry)

In our house we do not have baby gates as the world knows them, we have old expandable metal window screens. We've only ever needed gates to keep our dogs out of the dining room and the upstairs.

These gates have always been the bane of my existence. I'm a klutz, and as such, I have issues with "jumping" these hurdles. As you can see in Exhibit A (picture to the left): These are not especially high screens (maybe 2' high). If you notice in the background of Exhibit A, there is a white drying rack.

This morning I tried to step OVER the screen, tripped, and landed on the [now broken] drying rack. If this were the first time this had happened I would not be posting, but as I've tripped no less than 1,000 times on these screens, and broken no less than 4 screens, over the past few years, I am. This morning took the cake though...I managed to trip over the screen, scrape my calf, and land on, and break, the drying rack.

Avelyn was watching the entire thing, and burst out laughing.

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Matt's been working on the bathroom as much as he can. He's gotten all the walls tore down to the studs. He's hoping to get the ceiling done this week, so that on Sunday and next week he can run the electric...so the following weekend he, FIL, and BIL can hang sheet rock! WOOHOO!!!


We also went to Low.es today to look at the rest of the stuff we need for the bathroom. Surprisingly we don't need to special order anything for the shower....they carry it all in stock. So we're going back on Sunday (since we have a coupon) to get the rest of what we need. We did get the lights for above the shower and bath, as well as the sink top. It's progress, but we're getting there.


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I'm trying to find something to wear for A's Christening: I'm not having much luck. One) because I'm a cheapskate and I don't want to spend more than $20 on something, two) because there's just not much out there.

I finally began to cave and was willing to spend more money, but then what I found, I can't find a matching top for. I called CWC and asked them, but the top is unavailable. Can someone explain to me how clothing stores can show outfits, but not SELL all the pieces to the outfit?! I did find a top on landsend.com, that would possibly go, but then I'm paying for shipping etc and not knowing whether it's going to match! How frustrating!

Then I got the most recent Vera Bradley catalog and in there is the cutest white dress with colorful butterflies on it with a navy cardigan, but do you think THAT is for sale? Nope.

I looked at jcrew; I looked at Ann Taylor; I looked at Talbots: NIENTE! NADA! ZILCH! ZIP!